Outward and Visible Signs of Conversion in Nineteenth-Century KwaZulu-Natal

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Periodical article

Title:	Outward and Visible Signs of Conversion in Nineteenth-Century KwaZulu-Natal
Author:	Etherington, Norman
Year:	2002
Periodical:	Journal of Religion in Africa
Volume:	32
Issue:	4
Pages:	422-439
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Natal
Subjects:	religious conversion Christianity Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581601
Abstract:	This article argues that the perpetually vexing question of identifying and verifying religious conversion in mission history can be approached by taking outward texts and signs more seriously. The examples chosen for study are the various missions active in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) in the period 1835-1885. Over time African evangelists and churchgoers responded to missionary injunctions to value the materiality of printed texts and to 'put on the raiment of the Lord' in a literal sense. Signs, which might on the surface be regarded as trivial, came in time to be widely regarded as evidence of conversion to a new belief. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract]